Every Day with Jesus

The miracle of the Christian proposal is that we can encounter God every day; the mortal meets the immortal, we abide in the Lord’s presence. Christianity is not simply a philosophical concept, but a friendship with our divine creator. If we understand Jesus’ teachings as no more than a moral code, we will quickly find that its demands lie beyond our natural ability. Relationships are built on tru...

All athletes know the importance of diet.* As Christian athletes our diet is to feed from God’s Word, the bread of life, consistently and appropriately (John 6:35). Paul describes our life as participating in a race, with a prize for the winner. It’s easy to lose focus once life’s many responsibilities demand our adult attention.

Spiritual formation aims to equip us to grow up. We can stubbornly refuse Christian adulthood and keep chasing childish distractions, whilst refusing to accept personal spiritual responsibility. There’s a distinction between childlike behaviour to enter the kingdom (Matt. 18:2–5) and being childish. Jesus invites us to live with the confident trust a child can invest in a parent.

We associate the mind with thought. Having been trained to think, I easily live in my head, a place I’m comfortable in. Conceptually I interpret and comprehend many things; my challenge is doing something useful with my thoughts. The mind is, ‘the part of a person that makes it possible to think, feel emotions, and understand things’.

In 2020, the Guardian newspaper reported that the proportion of students awarded first-class degrees in England increased by 90% in eight years.* Grade inflation or increased consumption of brain food, who knows? The same year saw 23% of undergraduate entry coming from ‘low participation neighbourhoods’, up from 14% nine years earlier.

The word ‘heart’ occurs over one thousand times throughout Scripture. It describes the core of our being, providing the engine room for our intellectual, physical and emotional life (Prov. 27:19). We are invited to hide God’s Word in our heart (Psa. 119:11) and it is by exploring our heart that we grow familiar and learn to understand the complexities of the inner life of the Spirit within us.

The basis of Christian maturity is clear: ‘fear God and keep his commandments’. It’s why we maintain a discipline of reading Scripture daily, and is the reason for Every Day with Jesus. Scripture informs our decision-making. So, to learn more of God and His ways helps us to make good, God-centred choices.

When we make a decision we settle something. It offers us the opportunity to choose between two or more opportunities, and then to live on the basis of our decision. Our human nature often prefers to postpone decisions for they appear so final. We wonder what might have happened had we made an alternative choice.

The Christian proposal turns on the fact that mortal life is not the same as our existence. Rather, an eternal creator God establishes the basis for a route of recovery from sin, which obstructs human access to God. What we experience on earth is just a brief sojourn outside paradise, which is presented in Scripture as the original state of God’s creation.

Early in Scripture, God asks the critical question we face every day, ‘Where are you?’ Like Adam we may feel we can hide from God’s scrutiny, but there is nowhere we can go to escape God’s gaze (Psa. 139:7–12). Indeed, the question requires an answer on two levels: one where we describe our physical position; the second, far more challenging, our metaphysical condition, or what is the real meaning...

Obedience is the foundation on which spiritual formation is built. It’s a word with a mixed history given that we prize personal freedom. Increasingly, in an age driven by relentless messages communicated across innumerable social media platforms, it’s challenging to distinguish truth from untruth.

The basis on which we can place our complete trust in God is the fact that not only is He the creator of all things (Rev. 4:11), but in Christ He has restored relationship with humanity. The ministry of Jesus through the cross secures rescue, healing and restoration. When we accept God’s invitation for friendship we become a new creation within a new world order.

Each one of us is a unique individual. We experience life’s wilderness seasons when we feel alone, even abandoned. Yet, God invites us to find and enter into a community, and in fact models the nature of that community in the Trinity. Here, three distinct persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – co-conspire and co-create in the highest interests of life.

'Good’ means suitable – and any ethical sense we associate with the word, such as to do a good deed, is really quite a modern concept.* This fits our text admirably, for God sees that it is unsuitable for Adam to be alone. There is recognition that just as God is Trinity, three persons in one essence, humanity is in need of community to flourish. Hence, God creates a partner for Adam. We can concl...

God creates all of life and finally creates humanity. There’s no distinction between God’s created elements. Each is good and together they are ‘very good’ (Gen. 1:31). Remarkably, humanity is also made in God’s image, which means that both male and female reflect God.

God takes nothing and creates something. Outside of God there is no thing, which is why God provides the framework within which all that we can know is contained. The universe was crafted from nothing into everything we can touch, feel, sense, measure or detect, including living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time.

As life whistles past and our world is in perpetual movement, God remains the only unchangeable reality. Celebrating or weeping, Jesus is our constant (Heb. 13:8). At times all we can do is cling to little more than a shadow of the one we knew so intimately previously. Our mistake is to let go in the hope of finding a more satisfying source of help and hope.

I am by nature an enthusiast. Problem is that I willingly and sincerely commit without pausing to calculate if I have the capacity to follow through on that commitment. So many speak of their enthusiasm for God, yet know the disappointment that accompanies moments of slippage. Those times when something interrupts our intended devotion. At its worst it leads us to sin; in every case it distracts o...

Today is Ash Wednesday, when some Christian traditions mark the foreheads of congregants with an ash cross. It is an outward witness to their inner conviction to live and serve God fully and faithfully. Indeed Lent, which starts today, is a season that offers itself for personal reflection, change, and growth in Christian faith. 

Today in Britain it is Shrove Tuesday. The word ‘shrove’ comes from ‘shrive’, meaning to confess one’s sins. It is the day before Lent starts, a season of preparation for Easter and the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is popularly called Pancake Day, since in many households, batters will be created and pancakes consumed.

Concluding this issue of EDWJ , we are on the threshold of Lent. Our readings in March and April will explore spiritual formation. Very simply, this teaches us how we mature as disciples. Many things that engaged us as children we leave behind as we turn our attention to more adult matters. The same process takes place within our spiritual life (1 Cor. 13:11) when we pay active attention to the Ho...

Looking at life through the lens of God’s Spirit only makes sense once we are assured of eternal life. Jesus promised we will enjoy resurrection and enter into glory with a life that can never die. Scripture, as here with the story of Lazarus, includes a number of illustrations of people who were resuscitated; that is, brought back to mortal life always knowing they would die again.

There are two ways of looking at life. One is through the lens of our mood and the practicalities that make up our day. Rooted in our immediate reality, this approach will keep our minds focused on our earthly existence. However, we can choose to view life through the lens of God’s Spirit. Here we follow Paul’s instruction, setting our

Following yesterday’s study, it’s important to state clearly that obedience does not equate to servitude. Whilst it is true that we are completely subject to God, He insists that we retain our free will. So we each retain control over the degree to which we choose to pursue God. God is no enforcer, and Adam and Eve were given free rein over the fruit they chose to eat (Gen. 2:16–17).

For some, duty sounds like a controlling and restrictive measure. In the UK, we live in a democratic society where freedom and individuality are championed, duty often rejected as freedom’s restraint. Yet, whilst everything in life is available to us, the question is, as always, does everything benefit us (1 Cor. 10:23)? Duty is what is proper and what is obligated.